Elementary OS on Acer Spin 1

Djarin

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Hey all, not sure if this is the right place to post so apologizes in advance.

I'm trying to install Elementary OS on Acer Spin 1. However, when I test the live CD I'm having the following issues:

Screen is rotated 90 degrees. The PC is a convertible and it seems to have an issue with the accellerometer.

Keyboard and trackpad does not function.

Everything else works just fine. Wifi, touch screen, etc. So if I can solve the above issues I could run Elementary OS on the Acer Spin 1.
 


Now, THAT'S interesting :)

G'day @Djarin and welcome to linux.org.

I may not be of much help, but if you have another CD/DVD spare, or USB stick, can you try another Distro (distribution) than EOS, and see if the problem persists? Then we can get a benchmark.

There is a small Linux program called

xrandr

that is used in monitor/screen orientation and resolution. It may extend to rotation, I think.

Let us know how you go, and I will stay tuned in case I can assist further.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
Hey, thanks for your reply. I did try another distro and had the same issue occur, except the keyboard / touchpad worked fine until I rotated the screen around and then back again. This was with Fedora.

I don't want to install any sort of Linux until I figure out a way to resolve these issues, so not sure I'll be able to give Xrandr a try until then.
 
I understand. Good to see you are proactive, and thanks for the quick response.

I have a lot of commitments, but I will try soon to see about xrandr's capabilities from a Live USB, if my hardware permits, and let you know if I find something.

I am in Australia, so please don't wait for me if someone else comes along with ideas.

Good luck.

Chris
 
Thanks for the input, but the screen issue is the least of my worries as I can use a work-around. However, still no trackpad and keyboard functionality.

*Edit*
Tried installing Elementary OS despite the issues. This time, touch screen did not work but keyboard did. Touchpad did not. After choosing install location (chose install alongside Windows), I got an error about something Grub dev not able to install on my MMC.
 
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Thanks @KGIII , saved me hunting around ;)

@Djarin can you tell us the exact name of the .iso you downloaded, and did you check the hashsum for verification?

TIA

Wizard
 
I know the install is good as I've installed it on another machine (older Dell, i3) and it works fantastically. The ISO is 5.1 stable 20200814.
 
I understand - Dells are great with Linux, we have 2. I have tried Acer, Asus, HP, in the end always come back to Dells.

Are you able to access Terminal from the Live scenario? If so, the output of

Code:
xinput

might help

Wiz
 
Ok, I've been messing around with the Spin 1 tonight. I shouldn't have. For some reason, I was able to completely delete my Windows install + restore partitions. Elementary is STILL not completing install, but I've gotten further.

Now I get an error message saying; "Executing 'grub-install /dev/mmcblk1' failed.

This is a fatal error".

When I restart without the USB stick in, it boots to grub. Is there any way to install Elementary OS through the grub prompt?
 
G'day @Djarin :)

Is there any way to install Elementary OS through the grub prompt?

Not directly, but if you have a Grub Menu, and it features a line that says Advanced Options for EOS, then you can use it to boot to a shell as Root, and try

Code:
grub-install /dev/mmcblk1
update-grub
reboot

and see if that works.

Can you take a clear picture of the Grub Menu and post it to us, or else write down exactly what it says?

If you want to keep Windows (is that 10 or other?) you would need to reinstall it first and then install Linux, Windows messes with Grub.

Have a read of the following article from Linux Mint, from top to bottom, as its OP (Original Poster)'s circumstances are similar to your own.

The installer EOS uses is Ubiquity, developed by Ubuntu and shared by many Debian-based Distros. There is an option there to take the Try EOS (not install) route, and from the Desktop open the Terminal and type in

Code:
ubiquity -b

which will launch the installer and take you through without installing Grub, to install it later.

I have to take a 500 km road trip today to pick up my wife from hospital, so I will be unavailable for some time.

But the Mint article includes input from jglen490, and @jglen490 is also one of our Members, so he may be able to help?

I'll be back when I can.

Wizard
 
Hey Wizard, safe travels and thanks for the help.

The grub says; "Minimal BASH-like time editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions".

I tried the grub-install but received an error. Ubiquity -b worked, and the installer completed. But upon restarting of the machine, I return to the grub line and not into EOS.

I also see in the partition manager that the location I'm trying to install to has a little key hole lock icon. So not sure if that's messing with my attempts to install.
 
Hey Wizard, safe travels and thanks for the help.

The grub says; "Minimal BASH-like time editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions".

I tried the grub-install but received an error. Ubiquity -b worked, and the installer completed. But upon restarting of the machine, I return to the grub line and not into EOS.

I also see in the partition manager that the location I'm trying to install to has a little key hole lock icon. So not sure if that's messing with my attempts to install.
The lock icon shows that the partition is mounted. It needs to be unmounted to make changes to the partition. Right click on that partition and select the Unmount option. After that you can make chages to the partition. Just be careful it is the partition that you want to change!
 
Thanks jglen, there's no partitions I need now that I deleted Windows. Thankfully, all saved info was on a 256GB memory gard. I'll try to unmount and reinstall using the ubiquity -b method.

Update: I unmounted the drive and formatted it and then installed again via ubiquity -b. Upon restart, I'm still thrown to the grub menu. If I try to type "Boot" it says I have to load the kernel first.
 
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The partition is a structure. The operating system uses the partition(s) to create a filesystem and that is the place where the operating system and files live. So the partitions are probably O.K., but the filesystem that Windows created are not really optimal for Linux. Windows uses the NTFS filesystem and Linux generally uses ext4.

Gparted can help to get rid of NTFS and set up ext4, then installing Linux becomes easier - it's fighting the hardware much less.

Without knowing where you have NTFS and where you have ext4 - or maybe everything is ext4, it will be hard to discover the next step that will actually work. With Elementary OS being on a Live CD, it might actually be easier to use the tools in the Live CD to answer some questions about the hardware and the eMMC storage.

But you are welcome to try other approaches.
 
As I mentioned previously, the entire Windows partition (including recovery) has been deleted. These are ext4 partitions. There were two EXT4's, one with Elementary OS and the other empty. I've formatted the entire hard drive and partitions so there is only one partition with the EXT4 format. EOS is currently installing in ubiquity -b mode.

I'll update this thread once completed to see if it'll boot into EOS this time. Thanks for the help.

Update: No bootable device
 
Clean install.
 
Ok, I did a clean install. I also completely removed all partitions prior to install. I installed by using ubiquity -b which lead to a successful install. I restart the PC, "No Bootable Device".

I've read online that this may be due to a secure boot issue, so I go through the steps suggested to choose the EOS installation as secure. Problem is, after choosing the EMMC HD no installs show up.
 
When you installed the boot files in the installer, where did you tell the installer to place those boot files?
 
I started with zero partitions allowing EOS installer to do that. It created two partitions, an EFI and an EXT4. So it's wherever EOS told it to be. I'm not too knowledgeable with Linux or how it works when it comes to how it installs etc.

*Edit
This is how EOS set up my HD.

/dev/mmcblk1p1 - EFI System Partition - Fat 32 - Flags boot, esp
/dev/mmcblk1p2 - ext4
unallocated - 1mb
 
Last edited:

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